How MI6 Deal Sent Family To Gaddafi's Jail

Exclusive: Libyan Islamist reveals how wife and children were 'rendered' before Tony Blair visit.












Sami al-Saadi is considering whether to sue the British government after he and his family were 'rendered' in an operation between MI6 and Gaddafi's intelligence services.

A Libyan Islamist has told how he and his family were imprisoned after being "rendered" in an operation MI6 hatched in co-operation with Muammar Gaddafi's intelligence services. The rendition occurred shortly before Tony Blair paid his first visit to the dictator.

Sami al-Saadi, his wife and four children, the youngest a girl aged six, were flown from Hong Kong to Tripoli, where they were taken straight to prison. Saadi was interrogated under torture while his family were held in a nearby cell.

"They handcuffed me and my wife on the plane, my kids and wife were crying all the way," he told the Guardian. "It was a very bad situation. My wife and children were held for two months, and psychologically punished. The Libyans told me that the British were very happy."

Saadi says he is now considering whether to sue the British government, making him the second Libyan rendition victim to threaten legal proceedings in less than a week.

The evidence that the family were victims of a British-led rendition operation is contained in a secret CIA document found in the abandoned office of Moussa Koussa, Gaddafi's former intelligence chief, in Tripoli last week.

In London, meanwhile, an official inquiry into Britain's role in torture and rendition since 9/11 says the government has provided information about the UK's role in the affair, and Whitehall sources defended intelligence agencies' actions by saying they were following "ministerially authorised government policy".

It is the first time evidence has emerged that the British intelligence agencies ran their own rendition operation, as opposed to co-operating with those that were mounted by the CIA.

Saadi was held for more than six years, during which time he says he was regularly beaten and subjected to electric shocks. Shortly after his arrival in Tripoli, he says, Moussa Koussa visited in person to explain how Gaddafi's new friends in the west were helping him track down the regime's opponents around the world. "He told me: 'You've been running from us, but since 9/11 I can pick up the phone and call MI6 or the CIA and they give us all the information we want on you. You've nowhere to hide.'"

Saadi, a leading member of a Libyan mujahideen group who was known by the nom de guerre Abu Munthir, was interrogated on one occasion by British intelligence officers, who he alleges did nothing to try to protect him after he told them he was being tortured.

The Foreign Office has declined to say whether it knew what became of Abu Munthir's family as a result of the rendition operation, describing this information as an "intelligence matter". A spokesman said: "Our position is that it is the government's longstanding policy not to comment on intelligence matters."

Saadi says he was tricked by the British authorities into travelling to Hong Kong. While in exile in China in March 2004 he approached British intelligence officers via an intermediary in the UK, he says, and was told that he would be permitted to return to London, where he had lived for three years after seeking asylum in 1993. First, however, he would have to be interviewed at the British consulate in Hong Kong, and would be met by British diplomats on his arrival.

Saadi flew to Hong Kong with his wife, two sons aged 12 and nine, and two daughters aged 14 and six. They were not met by any British officials but were detained by Chinese border guards over alleged passport irregularities, held for a week and then despatched to Tripoli.

Saadi says he always assumed the British were behind his rendition, "working behind the curtain". Confirmation came when Human Rights Watch, the New York-based NGO, discovered a cache of papers in Moussa Koussa's abandoned office.

Among the documents was a fax that the CIA sent to Tripoli on 23 March 2004. Marked SECRET/US ONLY/EXCEPT LIBYA, it concerns the forthcoming rendition of Saadi and his family. The wording suggests the CIA took no part in the planning of the operation, but was eager to become involved.

It says: "Our service has become aware that last weekend LIFG [Libyan Islamic Fighting Group] deputy Emir Abu Munthir and his spouse and children were being held in Hong Kong detention for immigration/passport violations. We are also aware that your service had been co-operating with the British to effect Abu Munthir's removal to Tripoli, and that you had an aircraft available for this purpose in the Maldives."

It goes on to explain that although Hong Kong had no wish to see a Libyan aircraft land on its territory, "to enable you to assume control of Abu Munthir and his family", the operation would work if the Libyans were to charter an aircraft registered in a third country, and that the US would assist with the cost.

The operation coincided exactly with Tony Blair's first visit to Libya. Two days after the fax was sent, Blair arrived to shake hands with Gaddafi, and said the two nations wanted to make "common cause" in counter-terrorism operations. It was also announced that Anglo-Dutch oil giant Shell had signed a £550m gas exploration deal. Three days later Saadi and his family were put aboard a private Egyptian-registered jet and flown to Tripoli.

Associates of Saadi cannot understand why his capture and interrogation would hold any great intelligence value for the British authorities, and are speculating that he may have been a "gift" from the British to the Gaddafi regime.

"On the plane I was told I was going to be electrocuted, hanged," Saadi said. "When we got to Tripoli my wife and I were in handcuffs, and our legs were tied together using wire and we were hooded. My wife recalls that she thought we were going to be hanged."

Saadi and his family were held initially at a jail in the Tajoura district, which he describes as "Mousa Koussa's family jail", and then at Abu Salim jail, a location where prisoners have been murdered and tortured for decades, according to human rights organisations. He says he spent the first 14 months in complete isolation in a cell measuring 6ft by 7ft.

"Whenever they felt I was withholding information they would beat me and subject me to electric shocks," he said.

As well as being tortured, he was repeatedly told that his family would be harmed and that he would be killed.

The UK was involved in the rendition of another Libyan Islamist earlier the same month. Other papers found among the Tripoli cache show that an MI6 tip-off allowed the CIA to abduct Abdul Hakin Belhaj in Bangkok. Belhaj, who later became a leading figure in the rebel forces that toppled Gaddafi, says he was tortured first by the CIA and then flown to Libya where he suffered severe abuse for several years, being hung from walls and immersed in ice baths. Belhaj says he too was interrogated by MI6 officers, who indicated they knew he was being tortured, but did nothing to help him.

On Thursday Belhaj met with British government representatives, who declined to make any apology. He too is considering whether to bring a claim for damages in the UK courts.

A number of Whitehall sources have said MI6 was complying with "ministerially authorised government policy" when Saadi and his family and Belhaj were rendered to Libya. However, the Foreign Office, Cabinet Office and Downing Street are all declining to say which department's ministers authorised the operations. A spokesman for Tony Blair said he knew nothing about the matter.

Jack Straw, who was foreign secretary at the time, said he welcomed the fact that an inquiry headed by Sir Peter Gibson would be examining the matter but did not answer questions about whether he had authorised the operation.

The inquiry headed by Gibson, a retired judge, that has been established to examine Britain's role in the mistreatment of terrorism suspects since 9/11, says that it was informed about the UK's involvement in the removal of Saadi from Hong Kong before the discovery of the Libyan government documents last weekend. It is unclear how much detail has been passed over to the inquiry staff.

It may be difficult for former ministers and intelligence officers to tell Gibson that they could not have expected Belhaj and Saadi and his family to be mistreated after they were handed over to Gaddafi's government. The use of torture had been well-documented by human rights groups, while the Foreign Office's human rights report for 2004 (pdf) states: "The UK remains seriously concerned by the human rights situation in Libya, including restrictions on freedom of expression and assembly, political prisoners, arbitrary detention and conditions in Libyan prisons." It added that the British were very keen to see Libya sign international agreements against torture.

MI6 Knew I Was Tortured, Says Libyan Rebel Leader

Abdul Hakim Belhaj says MI6 helped CIA arrest him and send him to Libya for torture.












Rebels surround a building in Tripoli, Libya. Documents alleging UK links to renditions to Libya have been unearthed by rebels as they take control of the country.

A Libyan rebel leader who was rendered to Tripoli with the assistance of MI6 said on Monday that he had told British intelligence officers he was being tortured but they did nothing to help him.

In a claim that will increase the pressure for further disclosure about the UK's role in torture and rendition since 9/11, Abdul Hakim Belhaj said a team of British interrogators used hand signals to indicate they understood what he was telling them.

"I couldn't believe they could let this go on," he said. "What has happened deserves a full inquiry."

Belhaj was detained by the CIA in Thailand in 2004 following an MI6 tipoff, allegedly tortured, then flown to Tripoli, where he says he suffered years of abuse in one of Muammar Gaddafi's prisons.

It emerged on Monday that MI6 had been able to tell the CIA of his whereabouts after his associates informed British diplomats in Malaysia that he wished to claim asylum in the UK. Belhaj was then allowed to board a flight for London and abducted when the plane called at Bangkok.

There were signs that the discovery of a cache of secret MI6 and CIA documents at an abandoned government office building in Tripoli was triggering panic in some parts of Whitehall.

The papers detail the UK's role not only in the rendition of Belhaj, but in that of a second man, known as Abu Munthir. This operation appears to have been planned by British and Libyan intelligence officers without any CIA involvement.

David Cameron said the disclosures would be investigated by the Gibson inquiry, set up last year to examine the UK's role in torture and rendition.

It was unclear whether MI6 or MI5 had disclosed anything to the inquiry before the new documents came to light. Inquiry staff first indicated they knew nothing about the Libyan operations, and were seeking information from the government "as soon as possible". Later they said they had "received material relating to these issues", but declined to be more specific.

Similarly, the Conservative MP Richard Ottaway, a former member of the intelligence and security committee, a Westminster body supposed to provide oversight of MI5 and MI6, indicated the committee knew nothing about the UK-Libya operations before giving the agencies a clean bill of health in a 2007 report on rendition; he then said he could say nothing about the matter.

Belhaj on Monday revealed more details of the lead-up to his rendition on 6 March 2004, which he says came amid his attempts to reach the UK, of which the government had become aware.

He said he had first tried to travel to London from Kuala Lumpur via Beijing in late February that year. However, he was refused permission to board in Beijing, despite carrying a French passport, which does not require a pre-issued UK visa.

He was returned to Kuala Lumpur where he was detained by Malaysian immigration officials. It is understood that an associate of Belhaj then visited the British embassy in Kuala Lumpur advising officials there of his intention to seek political asylum in the UK.

Shortly afterwards he was freed from the detention centre and allowed to buy a ticket to London via Bangkok. By then he had disposed of his French passport, issued to a Jamal Kaderi, and was travelling on a Moroccan passport, issued in the name of Abdul al-Nabi. Holders of Moroccan passports require a pre-issued visa to enter the UK, but Belhaj said he did not apply for a visa and was allowed to board without one – a highly unusual practice.

The revelation raises fresh questions about the extent of the government's role in Belhaj's rendition. Documents discovered last Friday reveal that a senior MI6 officer, Mark Allen, had written to Libyan spy chief Moussa Koussa congratulating him on receiving Belhaj and acknowledging that "the intelligence was British".

"I would not board until they assured me that I could travel to the UK," Belhaj said. "They did that and I got on the plane."

Belhaj was captured by CIA officers, in co-operation with Thai authorities, inside Bangkok airport. He says he was tortured at a site in the airport grounds and then sent to Libya, where Gaddafi had long seen him as one of the biggest threats to his tyrannical four-decade rule.

"The British were the second team to visit me," he said. "They came about a month after I was returned to Libya and they were very well briefed about LIFG [Libyan Islamic Fighting Group] members in the UK. They knew everything, even their code names. They wanted to know more details about the LIFG and also about the general environment elsewhere, al-Qaida, that sort of thing. There was a woman who was leading the team, a big man and a third person who was translating. They only came one time."

Belhaj said intelligence officers from other European countries, including France, Germany and Italy, also travelled to Tripoli to speak to him inside the infamous Abu Selim prison in the south of the capital.

Before each visit he was told by Libyan officers – and sometimes by Koussa – to "tell the British and others that the people they are asking about are al-Qaida".

"The Libyans told me that if I told them that I would be treated better."

He said Koussa, who fled the Gaddafi regime in March with MI6 help, would often taunt him in prison, with threats that he would die there. On one occasion Koussa ordered guards to put a shade over half of Belhaj's cell window, to reduce what little sunlight he was getting.

Files seen by the Guardian on Sunday inside the now ransacked offices of the external security service reveal that Libyan spies remained in close co-operation with the CIA and MI6 as late as November last year. The files reveal the Americans, in particular, were regularly requesting information about the identities of Libyan cellphone users. One document showed that the CIA had responded to a Libyan request about the user of a satellite phone by giving GPS references for every call made.

David Cameron's Holiday Boost

Pity the poor Cameron family. The received wisdom suggests that August should be a quiet month in British politics. Not so for David Cameron this year. Twice in the space of a few weeks, the prime minister was summoned away from wife and children to take charge back in Downing Street.













First, the worst rioting in decades brought him home from Tuscany; then the assault on Tripoli meant quitting the beaches of England's southwest. That's tough on a leader badly in need of a break after a pasting from the press over his suspiciously close ties to the Murdoch media empire revealed by the phone-hacking scandal.

But the broken holiday has useful consolations. Cameron's approval ratings now stand at around 40 percent; much the same as before the summer's traumas. Better still, the Conservatives are slowly regaining some of the ground lost to Labour in recent months. The latest YouGov polls suggest that the party is trailing by just five points at 37 percent.

Some explanations are easy enough. The riots allowed Cameron to show off the kind of calm and competence that the public expects of a leader at a moment of crisis. And the approach of total victory in Libya has converted many of the skeptics, with support for Britain's involvement in the campaign–now 43 percent–rising with every advance.

No less important, the summer's troubles have provided useful political distraction from other pressing national woes. The latest growth figures show a British economy that's more or less flat-lining. Unemployment and inflation are both rising while manufacturing output–seen as crucial to recovery–fell sharply last month.

That's bad for the Conservatives, with the polls indicating that they are still seen as the party of the rich out of sympathy with the poor or the squeezed middle classes. Voters accept the need for austerity measures if Britain is to escape the fate of other European nations, but the mood is grim. “You need another story if you want to keep them happy,” says Neil O'Brien of the Conservative think tank Policy Exchange.

The riots provide just such a story. Cameron, long accused of lacking a distinctive cause, now has a clear purpose and goal: repairing what he has called “Broken Britain.”

And he can't be accused of any sudden conversion. For Cameron, the issue of how to tackle the problems of Britain's poor and alienated youth is familiar ground. His concern for “Broken Britain” was a recurring theme in his attempts to give the Conservative Party a more caring image in the run-up to last year's elections.

Politically, it's an issue that demands all Cameron's PR deftness. On the one hand, he knows that the public takes a tougher line than both main parties when it comes to questions of law and order. He knows too that plenty of right-wing Tory MPs–their numbers strengthened at the election–are still suspicious of their leader's attempts to edge the party onto the center ground of politics.

On the other, he can't disown the talk of compassionate conservatism that he's deployed in the past, and Labour yearns for a slip-up that will allow him to be portrayed as an old-style Conservative more interested in punishment than seeking to understand the causes behind the riots.

Language is crucial. Whatever their reaction to the riots, the public doesn't like the harsh rhetoric of retribution. “Much of it is tonal,” says Neil O'Brien. “If you get it wrong, it sounds like you're off the golf course.”

So far, Cameron has managed to sidestep the pitfalls, moderating his language to match the voters' cooling temper. The initial talk of the looters' “sheer criminality” and his apparent endorsement of harsh sentences have given way to a more nuanced stance. In a BBC interview Friday, he was advocating “tough love” as well as tough justice.

Not that Cameron can risk complacency. Next month he must address his party's annual conference in Manchester, always a testing experience for a Conservative leader, and he'll need policies to match his words. One recent survey showed a clear majority believed that neither party was capable of mending “Broken Britain.”

And if Cameron's ratings have yet to slump, nor have they markedly improved since he took power. Voters may be awaiting results before they come to a firm conclusion on his premiership, says Rick Nye of pollsters Populus. “You have seen the hacking, the riots, and Libya, but they are not really game-changers when it comes to their fundamental assessment.”

Even if the streets of London and Tripoli stay calm, for Cameron the coming months will be no holiday.

RAF Flies £140m Unfrozen Cash Assets To Libya

The RAF has flown £140m of Libyan banknotes (280m Libyan dinars) to Libya after an assets freeze aimed at Col Muammar Gaddafi was lifted.









People rushed to get cash from their accounts after the Libyan banks reopened on Tuesday.

The cash, printed in the UK, is the first tranche of £950m that will be handed to Libya's Central Bank.

A Whitehall official said the money should be available for cash machines and banks in Libya very quickly.

Meanwhile, the BBC has learned that David Cameron set up a unit to block fuel supplies to Col Gaddafi's forces.

The secret "Libya oil cell" also ensured that petrol and diesel continued to get through to the rebels in the east, BBC deputy political editor James Landale said.

The Whitehall-based unit was made up of a handful of civil servants, ministers and military figures.

"If you didn't have the fuel, you couldn't win the war"

Whitehall source

It played a crucial role in starving the regime's war effort of fuel while making sure that the rebels could continue taking the fight to Gaddafi, Whitehall officials told our correspondent.


Our correspondent said the unit was the idea of International Development Minister Alan Duncan. He was unavailable for comment on Wednesday evening.

The former oil trader convinced the Mr Cameron in April that part of the solution to the conflict lay in oil, our correspondent said.

One Whitehall source said: "If you didn't have the fuel, you couldn't win the war. So our aim was to starve the west of fuel and make sure the rebels could keep going.

"Gaddafi had lots of crude but he couldn't refine it. So he had to rely on imported fuel. And we turned off that tap."

The unit was established in the Foreign Office and was initially headed by a senior admiral, and later by a senior government official.

The operation gathered intelligence about oil and fuel movements, and information was passed to the government and Nato.
'Britain's commitment'

The release of the Libyan currency came following a decision by the United Nations sanctions committee in New York.

The official said the cash delivery, worth $1.55bn, should make it possible to pay many public sector workers, including nurses, doctors, teachers and police officers, over the Eid holiday.

Many of those dependent on government salaries have not been paid for a number of months.

The money will also be used to provide aid for refugees displaced by the conflict and to pay for medicine and food supplies.

The funds were frozen in February when the uprising in Libya started.

The move comes on the eve of a major international conference on the future of Libya to be held in Paris on Thursday, chaired jointly by French President Nicolas Sarkozy and the UK prime minister.

UK Foreign Secretary William Hague said he was "delighted" the delivery to the Central Bank in Benghazi had been completed.

"Returning money to the Libyan people is part of our commitment to help the National Transitional Council rebuild Libya and help create a country where the legitimate needs and aspirations of the Libyan people can be met," said Mr Hague.

He added further deliveries of the remaining funds would be made shortly.
Ship held

Germany has also asked for agreement to release about 1bn euros (£900m) in seized assets, while France wants to unfreeze about 5bn euros (£4.4bn) to help pay for humanitarian aid and keep essential services going in Libya.

Last week, the UN agreed to a US request to unblock $1.5bn (£1bn) in frozen Libyan assets.

In March, a ship carrying Libyan currency worth £100m was impounded.

The Home Office said the ship was intercepted by UK authorities after heading back to British waters following an aborted attempt to dock at Libya's capital, Tripoli.

The money, which was printed in north-east England, was held at Harwich, Essex.

Tory Minister Alan Duncan's Links To Murky Fuel Trade

Under-fire Tory minister Alan Duncan was facing mounting pressure yesterday over his secret role in a $1billion Libyan oil deal for an old friend.













The minister in the Department for International Development covertly brokered the lucrative deal between oil firm Vitol and rebels.

Last night it emerged Mr Duncan was once on the company’s payroll, pocketing £1,750 a day.

His close links with Vitol and its chief Ian Taylor came under the microscope over the deal to cut off the fuel supply to Colonel Gaddafi’s troops and land huge profits for Vitol.

We also learned Tory donor Mr Taylor had paid Mr Duncan’s private office tens of thousands of pounds.

More serious questions were raised about the 54-year-old MP’s continued connection to the murky world of trans-global oil trading.

Before entering politics, Mr Duncan made vast sums of money by cutting deals to buy and sell large quantities of “black gold”, shipping it around the globe in a fleet of chartered tankers.

For two decades he has moved in circles that have been embroiled in claims of shady deals with dictators, war criminals and corrupt governments. The MP’s swashbuckling oil past has cast a huge question mark over his latest project and sparked calls for a government inquiry.

Former defence secretary Bob Ainsworth yesterday demanded Number 10 release all the details surrounding the behind-closed-doors operation, amid accusations of a “huge conflict of interest”.

Mr Ainsworth, a Labour MP, and member of the foreign affairs select committee, said it was “essential” to get to the bottom of the Libya oil cell, an organisation set up by Mr Duncan which ultimately benefited Vitol.

He said: “It’s important that we find adequate and appropriate ways to fully investigate this. It is unacceptable that these things should happen behind closed doors.”

And last night Douglas Alexander, Shadow Foreign Secretary, said: “Government ministers should be spending their time acting impartially in the UK national interest, assisting the Libyan people, rather than making grandiose claims about their own expertise and roles.” From 1982 to 1988 Oxford-educated Mr Duncan worked for Marc Rich, a highly controversial US commodity trader.

Mr Rich was indicted on charges of illegal trading with Iran and tax evasion, forcing the American to live in Switzerland because it had no extradition treaty with the US.

He was eventually pardoned during Bill Clinton’s last week in office.

Mr Duncan, while working for Mr Rich, had been involved in an elaborate operation to bust UN oil sanctions against apartheid South Africa, according to a newspaper in 2001.

The MP dismissed the allegations as “malicious and false” claiming that documents on the deal had been copied to him by mistake.

He set up Harcourt Consultants after Mr Rich fled the US.

He earned roughly £400,000 a year – and boasted that he’d made £1million during the Gulf War by selling oil to Pakistan, between 1988 and 1992.

At the same time, Mr Duncan was dipping his toes into politics, and was elected to the Commons in 1992.

After several minor positions in the John Major government, he played a key role in William Hague’s successful bid for the Tory leadership in 1997.

Mr Duncan became Shadow Secretary of State for Trade and Industry during David Cameron’s leadership.

But he kept very close links with his old friends in the oil industry.

Even in 1993, just a year into political life, Mr Duncan was to become embroiled in an alleged illegal multi-million-pound oil deal that would later lead to a criminal investigation.

In 2001, it emerged that the Pakistan government was probing a huge oil shipment in 1993, when Vitol sold 280,000 tonnes of “contaminated” oil to the country’s state-owned power company.

Mr Duncan was a paid consultant to Vitol at the time and dealt principally with its operations in Pakistan.

In 1994, the Pakistan government began an inquiry into the scandal, which was subsequently dropped.

There is no suggestion Mr Duncan or Vitol had acted improperly or illegally.

His friendship with Vitol, especially company boss Mr Taylor, would continue for the next 17 years.

Mr Taylor has given more than £200,000 to the Conservative Party, much of which went directly to Mr Duncan’s office. Mr Duncan has always maintained he was unaware his office cash had come from Mr Taylor.

The MP was certainly not fazed by Vitol’s regular bumps with controversy.

Between April 2008 and April 2009, while a shadow minister, Duncan was paid £35,000 a year to work 20 days – £1,750 a day – for Arawak Energy, an oil exploration company with interests in Russia, Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan.

The firm, which has offices in St James’s in London, is part-owned by Vitol.

Mr Duncan joined Arawak as a non-executive director, just weeks before the UK-Canadian oil firm raised money via a flotation on the London Stock Exchange.

At the same time, Mr Duncan had also been earning £45,000-a-year with the Los Angeles-based technology company Catalytic Solutions.

Mr Duncan – who once said he’d be “super-rich” if he had stayed working in the oil industry – resigned from both positions in 2009 and his consultancy business also ceased trading.

The move came after David Cameron demanded a clampdown on the outside interests of shadow ministers. But Mr Duncan’s continued lucrative link to Vitol caused more concern, especially when some questionable oil deals were dragged up in the media.

Documents showed it signed a deal with Serbian company Orion to sell oil to the former Yugoslavia.

In 2007, Vitol confessed to “grand larceny” in a US court and was fined $17million for paying $13million in illegal “surcharges” to Saddam Hussein’s government to help facilitate oil deals.

Silver-tongued Mr Duncan has been schmoozing super-rich oil magnates, especially those in the Middle East, for two decades.

The openly gay politician even proposed to partner James Dunseath on Valentine’s Day while visiting Oman.

His links with the oil-rich nation stem from his work and almost without fail he spends New Year there as a guest of the Sultanate. In the past 10 years, he has spent more than 100 days living it up in luxury in Oman. The tab was picked up by the Sultan’s government, which has presented him with five watches, three sets of cufflinks, and a traditional Omani coffee pot and incense burner.

Duncan has always denied suggestions there is anything improper in his relationship with the Omani regime, but again it raises questions over how he can remain impartial when brokering oil deals on behalf of the British Government.

Last night Labour MP John Speller said: “It is curious that he has kept such strong links with these companies that have regularly fallen foul of the law. It raises serious questions of judgement.”

The US is set to release $300million of frozen Libyan assets to the Vitol Group to pay for fuel for the rebels.

It is reported Vitol bought two tankers of crude oil from the National Transitional Council, the rebels’ umbrella group, while providing about 20 tankers of refined product.

No 10 has insisted there was no conflict of interest in his role with the Libya oil cell and it said his links to the oil industry were well known and registered.

Alan Duncan's top secret plot to get oil to Libyan rebels

HIDDEN away in two disused rooms in the Foreign Office, Alan Duncan plotted to get oil to the rebels.

He led a team of six over four months in the Libya oil cell.

David Cameron commissioned the unit, created in early April after the first round of bombing failed to topple Colonel Gaddafi.

Duncan went to the National Security Council with intelligence that sanctions were hurting the rebels while leaving the Libyan dictator untouched.

Duncan set up meetings between anti-government forces and his old company Vitol which then supplied oil to the rebels without upfront payment.

The cell also set up a major oil symposium, and worked with UK Trade & Investment to get firms operating after the conflict.

Britain And US Accused Of Playing Politics With Megrahi's Condition

The British and US governments were last night accused of ignoring the law and engaging in "international politicking" over the Lockerbie bomber, Abdelbaset al-Megrahi.










Alex Salmond said images of Megrahi in a coma and close to death showed why he had been released in the first place.

The Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond turned on the Foreign Secretary William Hague and on US senators who have repeatedly criticised the decision by his Scottish nationalist administration to free Megrahi on compassionate grounds.

He said images from Tripoli showing Megrahi in a coma and close to death underlined why he had been released in the first place and suggested that calls for his return to prison in Scotland had no legal standing.

Privately, government sources admit that they have no interest in pursuing the extradition of Megrahi despite the regime change in Libya. But they are anxious not to be seen as condoning the decision to release him. Macabre as it may be, ministers would like to see Megrahi die quickly and end the two-year controversy over his early release.

In his first public comments on the case since the fall of Tripoli, Mr Salmond welcomed the view of the Libyan transitional council that it would not consider extraditing Megrahi either to the UK or the US. "Perhaps if we all followed due process of law as the Scottish government has done and ceased the international politicking around this, then we could all be in a much better place," he said.

"The only people with any authority in this matter are the Scottish government who have jurisdiction on the matter – he is a Scottish prisoner under licence – and the new Libyan transitional council, who are the new duly constituted legal authority in Libya.

"We have never had and do not have any intention of asking for the extradition of Mr Megrahi. It's quite clear from the Libyan transitional council that following their own laws they had never any intention of agreeing to such extradition."

Mr Salmond dismissed the suggestion that Megrahi could be questioned further about the bombing, saying: "You've seen the CNN pictures as I have. I think the idea that he would be available for interview in any recognisable form is pretty far-fetched ... Mr Megrahi remains a sick man, dying of prostate cancer."

Mr Salmond said that the investigation into the bombing remained open as it had been for the past 20 years and could be helped by the regime change in Libya. "There are matters that still could be progressed on the Lockerbie bombing. The Scottish Crown Office have made it clear that if any other evidence emerges, any other people are available to give evidence, or any other indictments are possible, that they stand ready to follow these leads."

John Bolton, the former US ambassador to the United Nations, persisted with the argument for extraditing Megrahi to the US. "Personally, I think the United States made a mistake in agreeing that he be tried under Scottish law, which doesn't provide for the death penalty," Mr Bolton said.

"I don't much think of what the Scottish government thinks. I think the United States should insist that Megrahi be tried in the United States and face trial here."

Timeline

December 1988

Pan Am Flight 103 from London to New York explodes over Lockerbie. The 259 people on board the Boeing 747 are killed, as well as 11 on the ground.

November 1991

US and British investigators indict Abdelbaset al-Megrahi and Lamin Khalifa Fhimah on 270 counts of murder, accusing them of being Libyan intelligence agents.

April 1992

The UN Security Council imposes sanctions on weapons sales and air travel after Libya refuses to meet a 15 April deadline.

August 1998

Libya agrees to the two facing trial at a court in the Netherlands.

May 2000

The trial of the two begins, amid a large security operation.

January 2001

Megrahi is found guilty and jailed for a minimum of 20 years. Fhimah is found not guilty.

March 2002

Megrahi loses an appeal, heard by five Scottish judges.

August 2003

The families of the victims agree a compensation package with the Libyan government of £1.7bn.

August 2009

Megrahi is released after doctors say he has cancer and has only three months to live.

August 2011

Megrahi's brother is reported as saying that Megrahi is in a coma. Scottish government officials say his "condition is consistent with terminal cancer".